I was having a very interesting chat with Jason Atomic the other night at the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition, about Easter eggs in comics. According to Wikipedia, a virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke, or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, movie, book, or crossword. Something I'd never really thought about until I realised I was guilty of hiding a few myself. Jason is a very interesting artist who also has an impressively rammed cupboard full of comics and paraphernalia, which I will talk in depth about some time later. He was telling me how he'd sent some Coffin Fly 'fan art' to Shaky Kane for a bit of fun, to see if they'd end up on the letters page of Bulletproof Coffin. As it turned out, the letters page was all done and dusted, but Shaky emailed Jason to ask if he would mind them appearing somewhere in the strip itself. Well, of course he didn't mind, so above are the originals and the panel that they appeared in.

Michelle

As for my own little additions; I used to do glamorous cover photographs of a certain world-famous doll for her own magazine and sometimes, just sometimes I used to digitally encode secret messages into the pupils of her eyes. Only positive messages of course and they were so small, only I knew they were there anyway. It was slightly akin to Grant Morrison and his sigils, which he was often trying to convince me actually worked. I always felt that I had my own methods, but I did once try his, with pretty spectacular results I have to admit. Anyway, I'm going off at a tangent a bit, so I guess my most recent Easter egg was planted while I was adding colours and effects to Brendan McCarthy's art on Spider-Man: Fever.

There was a blank picture frame on the wall in one of the panels that was just crying out for a picture. At the time I was experimenting on a photo of my girlfriend Michelle and trying to turn it into a kind of Tretchikoff portrait, so I thought it was timely to use that and also quite fitting that she should appear in a Spidey comic as she'd given me a rather quirky, miniature doll-sized Spider-Man mask on our very first date. So there you have it. Easter eggs in comics, who'd have thought it!

A couple of months ago Karl Asaa of Orbital Comics asked me if I'd be interested in designing a flyer to celebrate their Tenth Anniversary. I leapt at the chance, because I just love that shop and all the great people who work there. For me, going to Orbital feels more akin to hanging out at the famous 'Coffee Bean Barn' in the Spider-Man comics of the 60's rather than a visit to Starbucks, if that makes any sense.

Being housed on the original site of The Photographers Gallery means they have their own Gallery to display Original art, alongside Events and Signings. They have a regular Podcast and Interviews. They have Vintage Comics, Small Press Comics, Manga, Toys, Statues, T-shirts, Posters, Art prints. In fact the only thing they don't have is...Coffee!...Hmmm...maybe I'll drop that in their suggestion box. Meanwhile, here are the two flyers that I designed for them.

The first features Californian M.Lee, who wowed everyone with her incredible aerial performances at the Millennium Dome a few years back and the second is more of a variant teaser really. This features Valeria who also starred as 'Zero' in the project I worked on with Alex Brattell and Grant Morrison for The Story of Zero. She also modelled as Robbie Morrison's,Jena Makarov character for my 2000AD Prog #1615 cover. For more about Orbital and their terrific line-up of events click the link to their newly designed website here...

Following on from my previous post about Bailey, ShrimptonandWe'll Take Manhattan (which I still haven't seen), here's another book from my cupboard, this one from 1965 and featuring a most beautiful portrait of Jean Shrimpton. Like I said before, it's not just comics in here but a whole load of other things that inspire me too (I'll get round to the mummified frog another time). The text on the back reads...

Who is "The Shrimp"? SHE has "the face of Candy and Holly Golightly, the suggestion of Audrey Hepburn innocence and Brigitte Bardot sexuality," wrote NEWSWEEK. "SHE is youth," explains Eileen Ford of New York's Ford Model Agency. "SHE's a happening," says fashion photographer Richard Avedon. "SHE has the face every woman would love to have this very minute," pronounces New York Herald Tribune columnist Eugenia Sheppard. "SHE's hopelessly sexy," says art director Nicky Haslam.

The English gave us James Bond and the Beatles - Now they give us "THE SHRIMP" with the face and the look that are sweeping the world.

A classic comic design from the 70's, October 9th, 1971 to be precise. Countdown was the worthy successor to TV21 and featured some great artists, my favourites being John Burns, Ron Embleton and Gerry Haylock. Another bonus was the UFO strip based on the incredibly stylish Gerry Anderson TV series, featuring the SHADO organisation and set in the far-flung future of 1980!

Strange Phenomena Investigators (SPI) logo rough, circa 1970

Agents of SPI on reconnaissance.L to R, Manuel, Ian and myself (though I don't remember being quite that goofy or freckly).

I remember sitting with my two pals, Ian Smith and Manuel Zornoza in Ian's parent's coal-bunker which we'd turned into a base of operations (after we'd cleaned it up a bit) for our own secret organisation, SPI: Strange Phenomena Investigators. Of course we all had security clearance ID cards for which I found my original logo roughs a few weeks ago in my parent's attic. A black cat with it's back arched; I think I made it more pronounced for the finished thing. Wish I still had it. Oh, well, we can't keep everything... though I've tried my best... Anyway, there we were in our base of operations wondering what we'd be doing in 1980, how incredibly old we'd be and with Gabrielle Drake in mind, wondering if all the women of the future would be wearing purple wigs and silver mini-skirts.

With UFO in mind, one of the most exciting TV intro's ever, in my opinion...

I could ramble on about how great the opening night was and what a fantastic collection of art this collaboration between DJ Food and Henry Flint has produced, but instead I'm going to post the pictures. Needless to say, it was rammed most of the night with a constant stream of visitors and a most excellent time was had by all.

During my stay in Paris, I spent a great deal of time at one of the best exhibitions I'd ever seen. Jean-Paul Goude:A Retrospective, at Les Arts Décoratifs. Here are a few photos, plus a very short film I made using my Nokia smart phone.

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Having just got back from a 3 Day business trip to Paris, I feel totally inspired by the things I've seen; some of which I will post on here. Meanwhile, here's something from one of France's best illustrator's, Serge Clerc and a book I bought while I was there a few years ago.

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Well it's Tuesday, so that means it's sneaky peek time. Here's a page from David Hine & Shaky Kane'sThe Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred, in stores next month. Miss this at your peril, or at least before it goes into its umpteenth printing!

Monday, 23 January 2012

I always loved the art of Frank Robbins. This production stat is from:Adventure Into Fear - Morbius the Living Vampire #27'Night of the Vampire Stalker!'(1975)Script: Doug MoenchArt: Frank RobbinsInks: D. Fraser

Just as important to me as my comic-books
are my vintage magazines and I've been collecting them for many, many years. My
most prized item of them all is the April 1962 edition of British Vogue. I was
so happy when I discovered this in an old magazine shop about twenty years ago,
because inside was the legendary photo editorial by a young David Bailey and
starring his muse, Jean Shrimpton.

The reason why this particular magazine is
relevant is because there's a film about to air this week on BBC4 based around
this very assignment; when Bailey used a 35mm SLR instead of large or medium
format and shot a fashion story like no other. Refusing to conform to the
expectations of Vogue's fashion editor at the time his shoot resulted in a mix
of fashion, reportage and a hint of Pop Art and changed the way fashion was
photographed for all time. We'll Take Manhattan is on Thursday
26th January on BBC Four, Starring Aneurin Barnard and Karen Gillan
and will hopefully be worth watching. Meanwhile, here are some scans from my
own vintage copy of Vogue '62.

David Bailey has been an inspiration to me
since I won my first all-plastic Diana camera in a talent contest at the age of
ten. The contest was nothing to do with photography at all, but I was awarded
this prize for my exceptional skill at delivering an ear-splitting Tarzan call.
This was some form of entertainment for kids at the Sinah Warren holiday resort
in Hayling Island. Anyhow, I made good use of this light-leaking piece of
equipment until I'd saved enough pocket-money for something a little more
robust.

Bruce Fleming

I did finally get to see Bailey for real in
the early 80's when I was assistant to a photographer called Bruce Fleming.
Well known for his photos of Jimi Hendrix and a great many others, he
was also a member of the swinging sixties photo-set and that day we were
using the studio next door to Bailey. Bruce was another great inspiration for
me and I'll always remember the things I learnt while working for him. He used
to have an amazing selection of photographs on the wall of his apartment which
he referred to as 'Memories and Friends on Eight by Tens'. One of them was a
photo of him shaking hands with his own hero, Weegee and another was this
cutting from King Magazine, September, 1966. The reason I can post this page is
because coincidentally, I found this very magazine about six months ago on a
vintage magazine stall in the East End.

Sunday, 22 January 2012

While looking around for the title sequence to Barbarella, I discovered this really interesting video for the SXSW "Excellence in Title Design" competition screening. Edited by Ian Albinson of artofthetitle.com

As a follow-up to the earlier Barbarella thread, here's a slightly battered looking copy of Penthouse that I bought a few years back, plus a detail of the British poster for the film. I'm curious as to who the artist was; the style looks incredibly familiar, but there seems to be no reference to the artist online. If anyone knows for sure, please tell. UPDATE:David Yates from Reading, suggests it could be early John Burns, which makes absolute sense, I can't figure out why I didn't see the similarity myself. I need to investigate further... Another UPDATE: I have now asked John Burns about this and he said it definitely wasn't one of his, so the mystery deepens...

After the most awesome of experiences at the Planetarium last Thursday (See Dave Hine's writings over on the other channel for word about that) there is yet more to come! For those of you who are in the vicinity there's an exhibition that will be well worth attending this week; the details are below. For more info go to DJ Food or Henry Flint's blog.

One of Henry's other projects. The one page graphic novel. Visit his blog for a higher-res image.

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Today's find is a production proof for 2000AD Prog #848 - 14 Aug, 1993 - featuring superb cover art by the inimitable Brian Bolland. I remember this being commissioned by Alan McKenzie at the time and I still (luckily) have Brian's incredibly detailed fax, that I used to do the cover layout ahead of the finished art arriving in the command module.

This cover also appeared as the frontispiece and in the chapter entitled 2000AD, in a book by The V&A. The Art of the Book. James Bettley, ed. V&A Publications ISBN: 1851773339